Assembly line workers employed by electronics giant Western Digital believed to be detained by immigration for not having work permits have been released, said the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam).

According to its commissioner Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah, Western Digital claimed that "quite a number" of them were released after they managed to produce photocopies of their passports.

This was relayed to Muhammad Sha'ani in a meeting with the conglomerate's vice-president for human resources in Asia, Mike Meston, yesterday afternoon.

western digital indonesian workers "(Meston) informed me that initially there were quite a number arrested. Three were released first because their friends managed to get them copies of their passports and the rest were helped because they were late to produce the documents," he said when contacted.

He, however, said that Western Digital did not provide information on how many were detained and when they were released.

Immigration has refused to divulge the information.

In an email to Malaysiakini late last night, Meston said that Western Digital had on Wednesday visited the Shah Alam immigration centre to confirm that none of its employees were still held in the lock-up.

Backlog at immigration

The Suhakam commissioner had visited Western Digital's offices in Selangor following the news portal's report that at least 1,000 of its Indonesian workers have not been provided permits by their employer after almost two years since arrival.

Muhammad Sha'ani said that, based on Meston's explanation, it appears that the backlog of permits lies with the immigration and that the permits were issued some nine months after the workers arrived.

western digital indonesian workers form "But by then the (one-year work permits) were almost up for renewal so Western Digital had to return the passports to immigration to begin the process again.

"So I believe the workers feel that they have never had work permits as they have never seen them, when in fact they were returned to immigration for renewal," he said.

He added that Suhakam has been closely following migrant worker issues and believes that the backlog occurred as applications were centralised to the Putrajaya immigration office.

Decentralisation took place in January of this year and all employers are now required to deal with state-level immigration departments.

"We believe that the states were not prepared to take on such a high numbers of applications," he said.

Workers are legal

In a letter to Malaysiakini on Wednesday, Meston admitted to facing backlog problems with the work permits and said that Western Digital has been able to successfully resolve cases where its workers have been "mistakenly detained".

The VP maintains that the workers are legal and entered the country with proper approval by immigration.

It is understood that the company has managed to clear the backlog from about 6,000 cases of workers without permits to about 1,500 now.

Workers met by Malaysiakini claim to have been without permits for about two years, facing harassment by enforcement officers.